10/07/2023
Nice to be on a panel with Graham Thomson again. We discussed the Alberta Municipalities ask of $1B more in funding from the Government of Alberta and the election of Wab Kinew and the Manitoba NDP. CTV News host Michael Higgins expertly facilitating the convo as always.
Should political parties be involved in municipal politics?
We also touched on this question during our discussion. As someone who has worked on both municipal and provincial campaigns in Alberta, I can tell you that political parties are already involved. They actively organize and mobilize in an unofficial capacity for their preferred candidates and have been for a long while.
Party affiliation can give candidates a major advantage over those who are truly independent.
You don’t have to look too deeply at the makeup of a city council to know which candidates are aligned with which parties. Some are blatantly obvious as they have previously run under that party’s banner either provincially or federally or have actually served as elected officials under those banners.
This allows partisan bickering and brinkmanship to seep into municipal politics as we have seen displayed on more than one occasion.
There are many paths, other than the status quo, that can be taken. Here are just two considerations:
1) Allow political parties to officially support and campaign for their preferred candidates openly so voters can see the affiliation and make their decisions accordingly. This is already the case in some municipalities in Quebec and BC.
2) Implement a “cooling off” period for candidates who have run provincially or federally under a party banner. One election cycle minimum before they can run municipally. Meaning they cannot run in the next municipal election immediately following their campaign or elected term as a party candidate.
Whichever path is chosen, something has to be done about declining voter participation in municipal elections. And party affiliation has shown to reduce the power of incumbency at the municipal level. Term limits should also be introduced but that’s a topic for another day.
Most voters object to having political parties involved in municipal elections, but I think we can agree that greater accountability in civic politics would be a good thing.
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